A writer must “know and have an ever-present consciousness that this world is a world of fools and rogues… tormented with envy, consumed with vanity; selfish, false, cruel, cursed with illusions… He should free himself of all doctrines, theories, etiquettes, politics…” —Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?). “The nobility of the writer's occupation lies in resisting oppression, thus in accepting isolation” —Albert Camus (1913-1960). “What are you gonna do” —Bertha Brown (1895-1987).

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

College Adjunct Faculty and "Non-Tenure-Track Economics" by Kaustuv Basu

“A much-awaited survey
on adjunct working conditions, released [in June 2012], finds what many have
long suspected: Adjuncts don’t make much
money, they receive little support in terms of professional development from
the institutions where they teach, and most would accept a full-time tenure-track
position if it were offered to them.

“But even though the findings may sound
familiar, experts said the crowd-sourced survey, which received 10,000
responses from part-time faculty members, provided detailed knowledge of
adjunct work conditions. They hoped that as a result of the study, college
administrators would pay more attention to part-time faculty, the largest group
of post-secondary teachers in the country.

“The survey, by the Coalition on the
Academic Workforce, a group that includes 26 disciplinary associations and
unions among others, found that pay for adjunct and part-timers was ‘strikingly
low,’ with half of those who answered the 2010 survey saying that their annual
personal income is less than $35,000 and two-thirds saying that they make under
$45,000. ‘A significant number of these faculty members were part of a
household that fell below the 2009 median household income in the United
States: 21.6 percent reported a household income under $35,000, and 30.2
percent reported a household income under $45,000,’ said the report. (According
to the American Association of University Professors, an associate professor at
a master's-level public university had an average salary of $60,612 in
2010-11.)

“The coalition reached respondents
mainly through its member associations. And though crowdsourcing is different
from a traditional statistical method (which would use a random, representative
pool), those associated with the survey said they were confident in the results
because of the large number of adjuncts who responded.

“Maria Maisto, president of the New
Faculty Majority, who has been a part-time faculty member herself at the
University of Akron and Cuyahoga Community College in Ohio, said the survey
provides evidence about adjunct work conditions that had been lacking. ‘This is
particularly important since the Department of Education no longer collects
data as it once did,’ she said. ‘This report challenges several myths about
part-time faculty, such as that they are all retirees, or newcomers, or that
they do not depend on the compensation they receive for their teaching.’

“Maisto said the survey would help her
organization advocate more effectively for ‘teaching and learning conditions
that all students and faculty deserve.’ She hoped administrators would look at
the data more closely, and try to collect more data for individual
universities.

“According to the survey:

Eighty percent of those who responded have taught as
part-time faculty for at least three years, while 55 percent have been
teaching part-time for six years or more. ‘These figures suggest that most
respondents to the survey see teaching as a long-term, professional
commitment rather than as something ‘adjunct’ to another career,’ the
report said.

About 19 percent of part-time faculty were teaching
three courses in the fall of 2010, 30 percent taught two courses and
nearly 25 percent of respondents taught one course. The rest taught four
courses or more.

The median pay for a three-credit course is $2,700,
though those with a professional degree earned a median salary between
$2,800 and $2,937, while a contingent faculty member with a doctorate
degree earned a median salary of $3,200 for a course.

About 18 percent of part-time faculty receive their
health benefits from a nonacademic employer and 37 percent receive similar
benefits from a partner’s or spouse’s work place. About 23 percent of such
faculty members had access to health benefits through their academic
employer.

Part-time faculty who teach at a unionized campus are
more likely to be paid for class cancelations and attending departmental
meetings and receive regular salary increases than those teaching at a
non-unionized campus. About 34 percent of those teaching at a unionized
campus said they received regular salary increases while 12 percent of
part-timers at a non-unionized campus received regular increases.

“Coalition members reacted with
optimism to the survey as a tool for reform. Rosemary Feal, executive director
of the Modern Language Association, said contingent faculty tend to be
invisible, with most people on campuses unaware of their work conditions. ‘It
takes a lot of effort to have awareness happen,’ Feal said, hoping that the
survey would have a snowball effect with more people finding out about the
treatment of part-time faculty members.

“Feal said the survey is one more tool
to ensure that adjunct faculty do not remain invisible. The MLA, she pointed
out, issued guidelines and recommendations
in 2011 for non-tenure-track employment. ‘Academic institutions in the U.S.
would not be able to function without contingents, and legislators and the
public need to know more,’ she said.

“John Curtis, director of research for
the American Association of University Professors, said the strength of the
survey was in the number of respondents, which was more than 10,000 for
part-time faculty. ‘We did get a very large response, and we definitely have
more information on compensation and working conditions,’ he said.”

Teacher/Poet/Musician

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Persona

"I want everything to be explained to me or nothing. And reason is impotent when it hears this cry from the heart. The mind aroused by this insistence seeks and finds nothing but contradiction and nonsense" —Albert Camus (1913-1960).